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It has almost become a cliché – the way you win in business and in life is to have passion for what you do, your product, and your mission.  Why, then, do we continue to be amazed by Apple’s success? A new study covered in a recent New York Times piece attempted to explore the […]

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Who is Art Levinson? Well, if you enjoy using and playing with apps on your iPhone or iPad, he’s the guy who convinced jobs that externally developed mobile applications might be a good idea.  If not for Levinson, your iPhone might look like this: Walter Isaacson’s bio on Jobs reveals that Jobs, the master of […]

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CX and TSA – these acronyms would seemingly have nothing to do with each other.  But in fact, I have experienced something truly amazing from a government agency that speaks volumes about the changing nature of serving the customer. When you think about government workers, what words come to mind?  Entitlement?  Inefficient?  Impersonal?  Bad service?  Ambivalence? […]

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We’ve devoted space on this blog over the past few weeks to analyze the Netflix (Qwikster) debacle.  It’s one thing when a radio company chooses an ill-fated format or personality.  It’s another when one of the most popular, innovative new media brands in history makes a spectacular miscalculation. How painful has Netflix’s fall been financially?  […]

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Our Lori Lewis takes a closer look at a recent Inside Radio poll about Facebook and social media.  Does she have an opinion about it?  Does a chicken have lips? Facebook’s mission statement should be understandable for any brand: “To give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected.” Understanding […]

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A recent Inside Radio article highlighted some of the differences in format performance between the Arbitron diary and their PPM metered markets.  The source?  Arbitron’s “Radio Today” that covers the Fall ’10 diary markets along with the October/November/December PPM reports for the same basic period. My bet is that this story will rile up a lot of […]

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In a post that ran here last week (“Actives”), guest-blogger Mike Anthony complimented Clear Channel’s Bob Pittman on his bold partnerships.  And just a day before his post ran, Clear Channel announced an alliance with LivingSocial. This partnership speaks volumes about where radio is heading, as well as a statement about the state of the […]

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The protests that started on Wall Street and are now making their way around the country are rooted in controversy.  While on the road this past week, I lurked in on several conversations that ranged from ridicule to sympathy about the people camped out in markets throughout the U.S. In reading more deeply into this […]

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Our Lori Lewis takes a look at the new Facebook “Insights” tool which inspires us to rethink the “pursuit of likes.” To understand the overall performance of any brand, it is essential to acquire a better understanding of how you reach, acquire and retain your audience.  You must know their emotional triggers (good and bad) […]

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This morning’s post is from a new voice, researcher/consultant/broadcaster Mike Anthony.  He is a regular reader of this blog, and often provides comments that may as well be posts.  Today, he gets his shot at Page 1 and an entry that I think you’ll like. As always, your comments are welcome and necessary in keeping the […]

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From the “Department of Self-Aggrandizement,” please permit me to give props to the hard-working team at jacAPPS for their accomplishment that we’re celebrating this fall. Three months after Steve Jobs opened the Apple App Store in the summer of ‘08, we hung out our mobile apps shingle with the urging of our digital guy, Tim […]

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I wish I had thought of that headline, but alas, it was written by Eric Wheeler, CEO of 33Across, a social targeting firm. Appearing in Ad Age Digital, his article has made the rounds on Twitter and in the process, shaking up the room.  As Wheeler observed, “If you told Don Draper that campaigns as he knew them […]

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Every PD faces this challenge, usually several times a year.  How do you take a heritage event that many stations celebrate and make it stand out from the pack? That was a challenge that many classic-based stations faced during the Pink Floyd re-issue celebration, “Why Pink Floyd.” Radio got a lesson from Jimmy Fallon.  During […]

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At The Radio Show last month, I was fortunate enough to spend a major chunk of a dinner with an Austrian morning show duo, Dani Linzer and Meinrad Knapp.  When I asked Dani about her impressions of the convention, she told me that while it was wonderful to be there, she was surprised by how […]

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Just a few weeks ago, we posted our take on Netflix’s decision to essentially divide its company between its movie download division and a new DVD division called Qwikster. At the time, we (along with thousands of folks on Facebook and Twitter) castigated Netflix for making an extremely lame move that otherwise took a brand […]

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Our on-staff social media maven, Lori Lewis, is always looking for “best practices.”  She found a great example of corporate communication from none other than one of the world’s global icons.  Enjoy. What a headline. Sir Richard Branson? The Founder and Chairman of Virgin Records who has an empire that is described as “300 companies […]

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In our continuing conversation about sales, I was taken by a brief article last week in Radio Info. They reported that Kroger’s ad agency announced that they will not buy time on radio stations that use “commercial-free” as a marketing device to advertise their grocery stores.  There have subsequently been a number of comments – pro […]

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During the past several days, we’d had a wide open discussion about the current state of radio sales, and the opportunities that stations have to rethink the “givens.” The Magid infographic from Tuesday provided data that backs up a lot of what Bob Pittman was talking about at The Radio Show – that radio is […]

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A lot has been said, and will be said by people more eloquent than me about the passing of Steve Jobs.  There are many perceptions of him that have intensified over the years as he became a cult figure in our culture – genius, control freak, entertainer, hard-driving executive, perfectionist. But perhaps the video below […]

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